Awkward works of Xia Yu 2011.12.10 - 2012.01.15 PREFACE WORKS SCENE TEXT	□ Awkwardness Xia Yu Writing is a misstep for me. Art depends on senses, while writing is controlled by brain. What you see, hear or taste can not be fully expressed in words. As a man who paints pictures, I would prefer to share my views through pictures. I’d like to talk about something outside the pictures. I painted nothing in the six years after my graduation, always assuming that I would do something else sooner or later. It was until 2010 that I started painting again. I finally figured out that I am a painter instead of an artist and life has its own time schedule, just as you cannot wake up until a given moment and CCTV Network News Broadcast is not on until 7 pm. Painting is a dark road with no guiding light. Everyone has to grope his/her way ahead in the dense fog, with no destination and no companion. Until many years later, when all your paintings are displayed in public, like replays in slow motion, you finally see a blurred shadow of yourself staggering along the road. This exhibition is, to a large extent, a summary for my life in these two years. When all these pictures were presented in public, I suddenly detected my own awkwardness, of which I had totally no idea while painting. What I painted are neither fish nor fowl. The figure is either a young man’s body with an old man’s head, or the body is heading forward while the head is turning the other way. In a harmonious world, such kind of twisted body is more or less out of place. People often asked: “Why do you paint in this way?” Who knows. Such kind of direct question often makes me embarrassed. It is like asking a man who got lost in a forest why she/he came to the forest. Actually, such kind of experience is very common for a creator. If people keep asking this question and an answer is unavoidable, all I can say is that “I want to be a good painter.” A carpenter should make satisfying furniture in accordance with the required specification and size; a singer should pronounce words clearly and sing in full tune. So it is the same with painting, which is also a kind of craftsmanship. The painter’s only goal is to paint good pictures. There are different kinds of people in this world. Some of them construct tall buildings; some of them have fun every day, singing and dancing; and some of them just sit still, thinking of all those beautiful things they long for. The present age is a like a high-powered running machine, on which I run out of breath and with an ugly gesture. I hope in the future I will not hate the present Xia Yu. I believe every painter is sincere in his/her own creations. Thank Line Gallery for exhibiting these paintings which once terrified and touched me. Thank my teachers, friends, and all the audience for coming to the exhibition. For all those who like these paintings, I am really flattered.
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Awkward
works of Xia Yu
2011.12.10 - 2012.01.15

□ Awkwardness

Xia Yu

Writing is a misstep for me. Art depends on senses, while writing is controlled by brain. What you see, hear or taste can not be fully expressed in words. As a man who paints pictures, I would prefer to share my views through pictures.

I’d like to talk about something outside the pictures. I painted nothing in the six years after my graduation, always assuming that I would do something else sooner or later. It was until 2010 that I started painting again. I finally figured out that I am a painter instead of an artist and life has its own time schedule, just as you cannot wake up until a given moment and CCTV Network News Broadcast is not on until 7 pm.

Painting is a dark road with no guiding light. Everyone has to grope his/her way ahead in the dense fog, with no destination and no companion. Until many years later, when all your paintings are displayed in public, like replays in slow motion, you finally see a blurred shadow of yourself staggering along the road.

This exhibition is, to a large extent, a summary for my life in these two years. When all these pictures were presented in public, I suddenly detected my own awkwardness, of which I had totally no idea while painting. What I painted are neither fish nor fowl. The figure is either a young man’s body with an old man’s head, or the body is heading forward while the head is turning the other way. In a harmonious world, such kind of twisted body is more or less out of place.

People often asked: “Why do you paint in this way?”

Who knows. Such kind of direct question often makes me embarrassed. It is like asking a man who got lost in a forest why she/he came to the forest.

Actually, such kind of experience is very common for a creator. If people keep asking this question and an answer is unavoidable, all I can say is that “I want to be a good painter.” A carpenter should make satisfying furniture in accordance with the required specification and size; a singer should pronounce words clearly and sing in full tune. So it is the same with painting, which is also a kind of craftsmanship. The painter’s only goal is to paint good pictures.

There are different kinds of people in this world. Some of them construct tall buildings; some of them have fun every day, singing and dancing; and some of them just sit still, thinking of all those beautiful things they long for.

The present age is a like a high-powered running machine, on which I run out of breath and with an ugly gesture. I hope in the future I will not hate the present Xia Yu.

I believe every painter is sincere in his/her own creations. Thank Line Gallery for exhibiting these paintings which once terrified and touched me. Thank my teachers, friends, and all the audience for coming to the exhibition. For all those who like these paintings, I am really flattered.

□ Awkwardness

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